Thursday, February 18, 2016

FAO calls for renewed action on antibiotic resistance

Contributed by Dr. Tamhankar & Siddarth David

The United
Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has warned that the overuse of
antibiotics and other antimicrobial agents is impacting rural livelihoods and
food security, and requires globally coordinated efforts and therefore needs
strict attention. While resistance has mainly been as a public health issue its
impact on livelihoods and food security has not really been recognized.

Helena Semedo,
Deputy Director-General of the Food and Agricultural Organization pointedout
that the overuse and misuse of antibiotics foster increasing resistance among
the very micro-organisms they were designed to quell, threatening to reverse a
century of progress in human and animal health. She also observed that the risk
of antimicrobial resistance appears to be particularly high in countries where
legislation, surveillance, prevention and monitoring of antimicrobial
resistance are weak or inadequate. Poor health outcomes effect livestock that
play a critical role in agriculture, the mainstay of rural communities and thus
the source food for the rest of the world.

This adds
another layer of disastrous impacts due to antimicrobial resistance, pushing
for better measures to address the problem.